


thunder in our hearts

by komhmagnus



Series: inspired by 3b [8]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Angry Alec Lightwood, Angst, Episode: s03e16 Stay With Me, Hurt Magnus Bane, M/M, Magnus Bane's Omamori Charm, Post-Episode: s03e15 To the Night Children, Protective Alec Lightwood, Worried Alec Lightwood, based on 3x16 promo, fuck lorenzo rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 10:08:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18259133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/komhmagnus/pseuds/komhmagnus
Summary: Alec had been sitting in the infirmary at Magnus’s side for hours, refusing to look away even for a second, until Catarina convinced him to get some rest.There’s nothing you or I can do but wait, she’d said.But she was wrong.





	thunder in our hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Running Up That Hill (Deal With God) by Kate Bush (Placebo has a great cover of it, also).
> 
> If you voted 2 in that context-free poll on Twitter, you partly caused this and I'm sorry lol

Alec can’t stop himself. He’s worried and shattered and absolutely terrified, but more than any of that, right now he’s _furious_.

Furious at Lorenzo for taking advantage of Magnus and willfully endangering him at the same time. Furious at Asmodeus for taking his magic in the first place. Furious at the world daring to deal Magnus even an ounce of pain.

Alec had been sitting in the infirmary at Magnus’s side for hours, refusing to look away even for a second, until Catarina convinced him to get some rest. _There’s nothing you or I can do but wait_ , she’d said.

But she was wrong.

There _is_ one thing. One thing Alec can do, even if it won’t help Magnus directly. Even if his boyfriend will still be lying in that bed when he’s done. Even if it won’t repair the effects of his body rejecting the magic. Even if it won’t bring Magnus’s _own_ magic back to him.

He can’t stop himself, and he doesn’t want to.

The door swings open before he can knock. It’s familiar and wrong at the same time.

Magnus should be opening the door for Alec. Magnus should be the one standing at the window, his silhouette dark against the sunlight and gold curtains. _Magnus_ should be the one standing perfectly upright with a healthy glow about him.

Not Lorenzo. Never Lorenzo.

Not in this apartment, the loft Alec had always imagined his and Magnus’s future in.

“Mr. Lightwood,” Lorenzo calls from the window. His voice is light. Chipper. Alec wants to claw the vocal cords from his neck. _That would be breaking several of the Accords_ , he thinks. He’s almost okay with it.

But, no. Magnus wouldn’t want that, or at the very least, he wouldn’t want to see Alec face the consequences of that. Alec won’t do that to Magnus, no matter how much of a worthless, pathetic excuse of a person and High Warlock Lorenzo Rey might be. _A placeholder_ , Alec thinks. _A replacement that doesn’t even come close to the original_.

“I’m surprised to see you again so soon. Did you decide you want to come with this apartment after all?” Lorenzo asks. Alec feels sick. Genuinely sick, like he could vomit all over the Persian rug that Alec knows for a fact Magnus spent weeks picking out dutifully.

“The magic you gave him. It’s—” Alec cuts off. He can’t bring himself to say it, he can’t. _Killing him_. “He’s—”

Lorenzo turns, his back to Alec once again. His voice is almost regretful when he speaks, but Alec hears the underlying glee. “His body is rejecting the magic. It’s a shame,” he tuts. He sighs and turns as Alec steps closer. “I did warn him of the risks,” Lorenzo adds, the smugness of his smile making Alec see bright red.

“You didn’t have to give him the magic. You didn’t have to agree,” Alec says through gritted teeth.

Lorenzo tuts again, moving languidly through the loft to the drink cart. “I think we’re both aware of how stubborn Magnus Bane can be. Nothing I did or didn’t do would have made much of a difference.” He pauses, pouring himself a glass of whiskey. “Care for one?”

The idea makes Alec sick to his stomach. Hell, even just the sight of Lorenzo using Magnus’s things makes him sick. “No,” he says, waving the offer and thought away. “You did this to him.” His voice is jagged, from tears and anger and every emotion in between, he’s sure. “You’re the reason Magnus is in that infirmary bed.”

“I assure you, Mr. Lightwood, that I am not,” Lorenzo says, his own voice angrier at the accusation. Denying. Defensive. “The same might have happened if he’d gotten the magical transplant from _any_ warlock.”

“He didn’t get it from any warlock. He got it from you. You’re supposed to protect the warlocks of this city. You’re supposed to protect _Magnus_ , whether you want to or not.” Alec’s surprised at the anger in his own voice, at the way he growls the words.

“I only did as Bane asked.” Lorenzo sneers, taking a long sip of his whiskey. “Now I’ll have to ask you to leave—”

“Magnus is my world,” Alec says, the words pulled out of him before he even knows he’s thought them. He steps closer, trying not to think about the desperation in his words, the wavering in his voice. “And if he dies—”

“You’ll what?”

The question is simple enough, one Alec would love nothing more than to answer. He would love nothing more than to send Lorenzo to Hell like Maia sent Heidi because that was what he deserved for hurting the man Alec loves.

But, he can’t.

Because things are never simple, not in their world, and because he is the Head of the New York Institute. A Shadowhunter. One who’s dedicated his short-run of leadership to improving relationships between the Shadowhunters and the Downworld. And Lorenzo is the High Warlock of Brooklyn, even though he isn’t deserving of the position. Lorenzo is a warlock, and regardless of that having absolutely nothing to do with Alec’s motivations, he knows how it would look. He knows the centuries of prejudice his people have shown the Downworld, _still_ show the Downworld.

No, Alec can’t kill Lorenzo Rey, no matter how badly he wants to. No matter how much he deserves to suffer for the humiliation and pain he’s caused Magnus.

The worst thing is, he doesn’t know what he _can_ do. Not yet, not now. He’s too caught up in his own anger, his own grief and pain, and he _knows_ that. He knows he came here in an angry rush, too enraged to think straight, to think past _He hurt Magnus_ and _I have to make him pay_.

Lorenzo is right in front of him, in his face. A challenge. He knows just as well as Alec that he can’t _do anything_. “I believe I asked you to leave,” he snarls, and Alec feels himself being pushed back, not by Lorenzo’s hands but by his magic. The same magic coursing through Magnus’s body, the same magic his body is rejecting and putting him through pain. Alec lets it happen, surprised the scream bubbling in his throat hasn’t forced its way out.

Lorenzo doesn’t wait for him leave. He turns and disappears down the hall into the bedroom. _Magnus’s_ bedroom. The bedroom Alec’s been spending almost every night in and wanted to wake up in for the rest of his life by Magnus’s side. The bedroom they made love in for the first time, Alec’s first time. The bedroom Madzie came barrelling into in the mornings when she’d spent the night, jumping up and down asking for pancakes. The bedroom that always reminded him of the feeling of Magnus’s arms around him.

Alec’s skin crawls.

He can’t be here anymore. Can’t be in this loft that still feels so much like home, but so unfamiliar and strange. Can’t be here to see the little changes Lorenzo has made like a spreading infection. Can’t be here to see Lorenzo looking so at home and at ease among the little world Magnus had built for himself, while Magnus himself is lying in the Institute’s infirmary fighting for his life. Can’t be here when Lorenzo himself is the reason Magnus is even in that infirmary bed at all.

He turns to leave, hand reaching towards the doorknob when he spots it. He freezes, eyes glued to the little side table beside the door.

The omamori charm.

The gift he’d given Magnus after their trip to Tokyo. It’s lying on the table, partly underneath a scrap of paper as if it’d been tossed there and forgotten. Overlooked. Alec has no doubt Lorenzo put it there. He remembers how reverently Magnus had looked at the gift, at him. Magnus wouldn’t have treated it like nothing. It must’ve been misplaced and left when they’d quickly packed to temporarily move Magnus into the Institute.

Alec picks it up, his fingers brushing gingerly over the silk. _It’s supposed to bring you luck and protection_ , he’d said when he’d given it to Magnus. _By the Angel_ , he hopes that’s true. He slips it into his pocket and, without a second glance back into the loft, leaves. The door shutting behind him feels infinitely more final than it had when he and Magnus left in the first place.

***

The beeping of the monitor fills him with dread and reassures him simultaneously. It reminds him of last night, of Magnus’s bleeding nose and bloody cough and Magnus falling to the floor in a seizure. It reminds him of the terror from that moment that’s still clamping down on his heart in a grip he know won’t loosen until Magnus wakes.

But it also means his worst fear hasn’t come true. It means Magnus is still here. Still fighting.

Alec’s entire life has revolved around the divine, around angels and demons, but never once has he been certain of God’s existence as he is now. _Thank you, thank you, thank you_ , he thinks. He repeats it over and over, a mantra. A prayer.

Catarina is at Magnus’s side, sitting tensely in the seat Alec himself had occupied for several hours earlier. Her eyes hold a question as she looks up, her mouth in a thin line. Like she wants to know, but is afraid to ask. He doesn’t blame her. _I won’t let him get away with this_ , he’d said before storming out.

“I didn’t touch him,” Alec says, and her face softens instantly. He sees something almost like regret in her eyes. “I wanted to, but I didn’t.”

Cat doesn’t speak. She stands, leaning over Magnus to kiss his forehead before stepping away. Her hand brushes against Alec’s shoulder as she passes. He smiles, but he’s sure it looks tense and disfigured. She shuts the door behind her, a quiet click as it slides into place, leaving Alec alone with Magnus.

He moves to Magnus’s side, collapsing into the seat Catarina had just left. He doesn’t know how he’s been standing all this time, how he walked all the way back from the loft when his legs feel like jelly and his entire soul feels like it’s being torn into jagged pieces.

“Hey, Magnus,” Alec says, and the rawness in his own voice is enough to make his eyes fill with tears. He blinks, willing them away, as his hand slides into Magnus’s lying on the bed. His hand is cold, clammy, and it’s so different from the usual heat Alec associates with his boyfriend. “I’m back. I went to see Lorenzo,” he says, spitting out the name. “Don’t worry,” he adds. “I didn’t do anything stupid.” He laughs, the sound wet and harsh. “I wanted to, though.”

He remembers the omamori in his pocket, suddenly feeling the weight of the little slip of fabric. “I found something that belongs to you,” he says as he slides it out of his pocket. “It was still at the loft.” Alec lets go of Magnus’s hand, slipping the charm into his hand instead and folding his fingers gently around it. “I took it back. I don’t think Lorenzo will miss it, and it wasn’t for him, anyways.”

“I, uh--I really need you to wake up, Magnus,” Alec says, and he hates how choked the words sound. Hates that he has to say them at all. “I can’t do this without you, any of this. I can’t--I can’t live without you. I said that to you before, and I meant it then, and I still mean it now.”

He closes his eyes, wraps his hands around Magnus’s. “I love you, and I need you, and you were right. I do miss your cat eyes. Like a lot, and it would be really great if I could see them again, right now. If you just--wake up, _please_.”

But he doesn’t.

He doesn’t, and Alec feels the exhaustion of the last twenty-four hours settle over him like a weight. He scoots his chair closer to the bed, laying his head down on the mattress. He uses one arm as a pillow, his other hand still firmly gripped around Magnus’s.

He lets himself drift into sleep, lulled by the beeping of the monitor and the faint pulse he can feel in Magnus’s wrist.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are appreciated 💖  
> Find me on Tumblr and Twitter @banesapothecary!


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